Novak summer house. June, twenty years previously.
Gabriel liked to tease Castiel. If it wasn't for his tendencies to wander off in stores or get distracted by bees or flowers or books or war documentaries, it was for the odd way he chose to speak.
"Cassie called me 'superfluous' today," he snickered to his best friend, Kali, as they sat lazily on the Novak's front porch. It was getting later, and a few fat mosquitoes drifted through the thick June air.
"Your brother's a little odd, isn't he?" Kali raised an eyebrow. She was threatening at best, terrifying at worst. Things tended to...catch fire, or disappear when she was upset. But she and Gabriel had had a love/hate thing going since junior high, and today was a 'love' day.
Castiel was standing off to the edge of the porch, his nose buried in the pages of To Kill A Mockingbird.
"Yeah, yeah, little moron's kinda cute that way," Gabriel shouted over to him, with a snicker. Kali rolled her eyes.
Castiel pretended not to hear. He was just getting to the part where Scout beat up that kid who said bad things about her father...
A car crunched up the drive, gravel spitting from the dusty wheels. Immediately, Castiel's head went up. Their father wasn't expected home for a few days, and their mother was at the church, praying. Normally Castiel would be there with her, but today...there was something about today.
So the car wasn't expected.
Out of it stepped a blonde man, hair slicked carefully back. He was young, not even twenty, Castiel guessed, and his face was clean shaven and sincere. His suit was immaculate, his eyes oddly icy.
Gabriel jumped up, kicking his legs against the dirt of the drive.
"Lucifer!" He shouted, Kali and the imperfections of his little brother suddenly forgotten. "You came back!"
The young man quirked barely a grin, spreading his arms out wide to intercept the barreling Gabriel.
"Gabe," he said quietly. "I missed you."
He eyes, poking over Gabriel's mane of pale brown hair, focused suddenly on Castiel. He felt uncomfortable for a moment, like something was missing in those cold irises. Something big.
Castiel just offered a tiny wave. He didn't like strangers much, and the Novaks were private people anyway. Nobody really bothered them, if they didn't bother anyone else, and Castiel liked it that way. He kept his eyes focused on Scout's battle.
"And you must be Castiel." the man's shadow stretched across him, and everything was cold for a minute, the flies and heat and dust of summer suddenly forgotten.
He raised his head to meet the eyes of Lucifer, daring the man to say something more. Castiel had a good poker face (although it often was employed in a villainous manner, with Gabriel cheating his friends out of money).
But the stranger didn't say a word; just gave that same, knowing smile, and entered the house.
Long after Gabriel followed and Kali left, Castiel stayed on that porch.
He felt oddly cold for days afterward.
...
Dean tried to ignore the pain, the lack of pain, the flow of scarlet from his shoulder. He tried to ignore the guns trained on him, tried to ignore the business of flies.
He tried to ignore the shock on Cass' face. The betrayal.
That was the hardest.
"Oh, I see! You didn't tell him, did you?" Meg was still talking, giggling. "Oh, well put on a wig and call me Juliet this is a downright tragedy, Dean! Poor Clarence is a walking time-bomb, and you just flicked the switch–"
"Shut up." Cass snapped suddenly. His hands were balled awkwardly at his sides, his eyes squinted in anger. Suddenly, the blue of his eyes wasn't pretty. Suddenly, it reminded Dean of the inside of fire, dangerously close to sending everything up in flames.
And suddenly, he was terrified.
"You don't know what you've done," Cass was saying. His voice was low with menace. Meg took a step back, a smarmy grin still plastered on her grimy face. "You're tiny. A bug. I could destroy you in a single step, you know."
Dean blinked. Cass was no longer the socially inept, quiet loner he had pegged him as a day ago. Now he was something else, something...dangerous. And, Dean couldn't help but notice, kind of beautiful in a strange way.
"Cass, um, we need to–"
"I was not addressing you, Dean. I was speaking to the bug."
"Cass back off. They have guns. Lots of them. So, uh, calm down, dude. Like, seriously..." Dean was getting nervous. He was sweating terribly, and with every step Cass took, the demons surrounding them raised the barrels of their weapons, panic written underneath their eyes.
Just then, the door opened. Not so much opened, actually, as was thrown from it's hinges, but Dean didn't want to nitpick the details. All he knew was that everything in the room froze in an instant and he got the strangest feeling of something big coming, a gust of cool breeze.
"Is Meg being naughty again? I thought I told her to stop flirting with my guests,"
Dean recognized the man's face. He had seen it everywhere; wanted posters, Sam's research papers, riot signs. In truth, Lucifer looked different in person. Smaller, thinner, more human. His smile was darker. His clothes, dirtier.
Cass suddenly tensed, the power not yet drained from his eyes.
Lucifer raised his arms, and slowly walked forward, the warmest of apologetic pouts on his face now. There deep scars there, lacerations and complications and scabs that were pulled taut over cheekbone, as if he had recently fought with a fencer, or a cactus.
"You must be Castiel."
Dean's heart jumped.
"You've grown, I guess."
He tried to speak, but only saliva stuck in his throat.
"Fifteen years is a long time, though, I guess."
Lucifer stood right up in front of the stony Cass. There was a moment of silence, a silence in which Dean hated Lucifer with an intensity that surprised himself. He had to sit back on his heels and contemplate it for a moment, drink it in.
Lucifer placed a hand on Cass' shoulder, but Cass jerked away, the normal air of confusion slowly returning. He glanced at Dean and in that instant Dean could see a million different memories jump and flash away.
"Too long between brothers."
And when Lucifer held Cass in an embrace of a soldier back from war, Dean snapped.
There was only one thing to do: they had to leave, and fast.
...
Novak summer house. July, fifteen years ago.
"Lucifer!"
"Not now, Castiel. I'm leaving, okay? I have–"
"Just wait, okay? I want to ask you something."
"Dammit..."
"That's a bad word to say–"
"I know it's a fucking bad word, Castiel, just...just let me go, alright? I don't want this to be...hard."
"I apologize."
"Okay if you cry I'm gonna have to get Gabe to throw away all your chick flicks, Castiel."
"Listen. Lucifer. You need to tell me. Where are you going?"
"...somewher better. Somewhere...somewhere I can be free. We can be free."
"We are free, Lucifer. This is America, I can go anywhere I want–"
"Not really, Castiel. It's a pretty damn nice cage, but we're all still birds."
"Lucifer..."
"See you, Castiel,"
"You are going to die, aren't you?"
"...You're a peculiar thing, Castiel."
"I hate you."
"One day, you'll understand. One day, we'll be free, all of the stupid little birds in their stupid little cage will all be free to peck and gnaw and eat and destroy."
"That sounds awful–"
"Trust me, Castiel. I will make it beautiful."
...